Apartheid Research Articles

Racialized Railway Mobilities: Repression and Resistance in the Anglophone South African Short Story During the Drum Decade

ABSTRACT South Africa has a complex history of racialized (im)mobilities. During the social engineering of apartheid, the city became a racialized white space that was dependent on black migrant workers who were forced to live in the marginal spaces on the edge of the city. This daily commute was enabled through the construction of public transportation systems and commuter railways. This mundane and banal form of mobility became a key site of both repression and resistance during the apartheid era. The present article explores how these racialized railway mobilities were represented during the ‘Drum decade’ of the 1950s in South Africa. It explores how the short story, as a liminal genre positioned within local and transnational literary cultures, is mobilized to narrate railway mobilities during this transitional decade. Texts analyzed include the news reports and short stories by Can Themba, Es’kia Mphahlele, and Nat Nakasa. This article explores how the mobile public spaces of the railways and the mobile figures of railway passengers were mobilized in the Anglophone South African short story as a form of resistance to the repression of the apartheid era.

Resistance against Gender-Based Violence and Discrimination in the Poetry of Sindiwe Magona

Sindiwe Magona (1943-) is a South African self-made black woman writer who rises out of difficult socio-economic conditions and turns out to be a well-accomplished writer who uses writing as a vehicle to struggle against the oppressive political system of apartheid, ongoing inner conflicts, criminality, and the infliction of gender-based violence. Gender-based violence remains an unresolved problem in South Africa where the apartheid regime and its adherents continue to nurture the patriarchal ideology which victimizes, alienates, and restricts women both in the domestic and public spheres. The focal point of this article, therefore, is to examine Sindiwe Magona’s Please Take Photographs (2009) which is embedded with her subversive strategy of unsettling the masculine authority constructed officially over women and conducted as a natural determinant of men and women’s unbalanced power relationship in South African society. An in-depth scrutiny of her poetry will reveal Magona’s exceptional endeavor to extricate gender-based violence out of the domestic sphere and reconfigure it as the greatest social and political problem of her country.

Historicising the unchanging face of Nigeria’s Foreign Policy Thrust from 1960 to 2015

Foreign policy is a tool. It is a means to an end, but not the end itself. What a nation gets from foreign policy on the international scene is dependent on its skill in negotiating, applying force and bargaining appropriately. In Nigeria for instance, foreign policy is seen as definitional or doctrine, and as such, using foreign policy thrust to advance the wellbeing of the country remains problematic. Since independence, the guiding principle of Nigeria’s foreign policy thrust has remained a reflection of its perception of the international political system. A constant feature that has remained central to Nigeria’s foreign relations posture has been Africa, with pre-occupations concerning fighting colonialism, then obnoxious apartheid policy in South Africa and the discrimination of black peoples in the African continent and elsewhere in the world. Nigeria’s foreign policy like those of countries all over the world is geared towards attaining the foreign policy objectives of the country’s leadership and its teeming population. Unfortunately, this expectation by the judgement of many informed Nigerians is yet to be fully achieved. The Nigerian Federal Government has often been accused of Big Brotherism and a Father Christmas outlook with little or no reciprocity. It must be noted that states relate globally in the conduct of inter-state relations. In this relationship, the international system provides a potent stage and theatre for Nigeria to come up with defined goals and collective concerns. Despite its clear goals and strong points, there is still a general feeling that Nigeria’s foreign policy plank is punching below its expected weight. Between 1960 and 2015, different foreign policy thrusts have been adopted with little or no reasonable result. This paper therefore examines the various foreign policy thrusts adopted from 1960 to 2015. And attempt to identify reasons why each of these Foreign Policy Planks could not live up to expectation, bring out why each of these foreign policy plank could not live up to expectations. Historical methods will be used in the collection and collation of data.

Racial segregation and the origins of apartheid in South Africa, 1919-36

No abstract available.

Segregation and plague: King William's Town and the plague outbreaks of 1900-1907

Studies in the history of bubonic plague in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth revealed the close connection between the Victorian obsession with sanitation and the development of urban segregation in South Africa. The response of the medical officials and local authorities in the cities was mirrored in King William's Town, where racial prejudges were compounded by the Town Council's incompetence and reluctance to incur any expenditure from its own coffers.

”Detta hav av orättvisa”

“This sea of injustice”. Motherhood and Colonialism in Sara Lidman’s Jag och min son Exploring Sara Lidman’s novel Jag och min son (1961,1963), this article delves into its nuanced intersection of motherhood and colonialism. The narrative scrutinizes Sweden’s role in the colonial system, with a particular focus on the South African apartheid regime. Through the lens of a Swedish single father navigating Johannesburg in pursuit of personal enrichment, the story highlights his strained relationship to several mother figures, unraveling complex threads that intertwine parenthood, colonial structures, and whiteness. Using the theoretical framework of motherhood studies, such as the concept of the other-mother, the analysis seeks to unveil the intricate capitalist dynamics of familial relationships within the context of international power hierarchies. These themes in Lidman’s works would only grow stronger in the years to come, and by examining Jag och min son, these early tendencies in Lidman’s writing are illuminated.

Apartheid in South Africa and Israel/Palestine: A Case of Convergent Evolution?

Abstract “Apartheid” is widely invoked to explain endemic conflict in Israel/Palestine. While oppression in South Africa and in Israel/Palestine bear striking familial resemblances, there are also fundamental differences. Analogy is not the same as rigorous comparison: It contributes little to the understanding of causality or process and may not be a sound guide for the development of political strategy. The two societies bear similarities with respect to their ethno-nationalist driving forces. Yet, whereas racial domination was a fundamental feature of apartheid racial capitalism, the displacement and expulsion of Palestinians has driven injustice in Israel/Palestine. Another key difference is that South Africa’s existence within its established borders was never seriously contested by the leading liberation movements, with the ANC holding firmly to the position that its struggle was to secure majority rule in a unitary nation-state with common citizenship. This presents a stark contrast to Israel, whose right to exist is frequently challenged. While Israel/Palestine and apartheid South Africa show more differences than similarities, this article concludes that they have been subject to convergent evolution, that is, the acquisition of similar characteristics, albeit from different starting points, and with subsequent divergence.

Towards decolonisation of primary school education in South Africa

Background: Despite the end of apartheid in South Africa in 1994, most black schools in the country still embrace coloniality through policies and practices. This leads to disempowerment, loss of identity, inequalities and inferiority in the learners, which are nurtured till their adulthood. It is therefore important to decolonise the inherited curriculum and recognise African identity, culture and system as valuable for Africans.Aim: This article aims to explore coloniality within the primary school education system in South Africa and aims to motivate curriculum transformation that will divest coloniality in Africa.Setting: This article centres around South African Primary schools.Methods: This article employs a desktop approach and a systematic literature review. To collect the data, the study selected articles from different search engines such as EBSCO, Science Direct and Google Scholar. This enables the synthetisation of previous works to provide knowledge on the topic. The decoloniality theory underpins the study.Results: Primary school education in South Africa is influenced by coloniality; hence, there is a need for transformation.Conclusion: The primary school curriculum in South Africa needs to be revised in a decolonised manner to suit a multi-racial or ethnic South Africa for the realisation of an equitable and just future for Africans.Contribution: This article provides knowledge about coloniality within the context of primary schools in South Africa and further recommends curriculum transformation to a truly African manner. It thus aligns with the journal’s theme and scope, which is the interrogation of coloniality in South African primary schools.

Sizwe Bansi is Dead:

This essay examines the relationship between politics, performance, and identity by entering into dialogue with the play Sizwe Banzi is Dead by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona. First staged in 1972, the play delves into questions of identity within apartheid South Africa, telling the story of Sizwe Banzi, a migrant worker who must adopt a new identity to secure a work permit in Port Elizabeth. After tracing the play’s origins, the essay provides a detailed analysis of its plot. This is followed by a brief theological exploration of the play, considering its enduring relevance in contemporary identity discussions, both in South Africa and globally.

Inequalities in the Cape Flats: Principals’ perspectives on children’s schooling

Background: A separate, apartheid system of schooling in South Africa entrenched European racialised ideologies of white supremacy that left a legacy of social, economic, and educational inequalities. The 1995 White Paper for Education, the 1996 South African Schools Act, and the Revised National Curriculum Statement outlined steps for equalising education. However, inequalities within the schooling system remain.Aim: The study aimed to understand how principals experience the lasting effects of apartheid-era segregationist policies in primary schools and to document principals’ solutions.Setting: A meeting of principals who work at primary schools in the Western Cape province.Methods: Researchers purposively sampled four principals from the primary schools represented at the meeting, conducted semi-structured interviews with the principals chosen, and adopted an interpretive approach to analyse findings.Results: This study finds from principals’ perspectives that neighbourhood gang violence, and highly unequal funding for schools in different neighbourhoods adversely impact primary school children’s education and principals’ abilities to lead as a result of context, overcrowding and inequality. Principals note that when parent-led programmes such as the Walking Bus produce a positive effect, the government tends to undercut parents’ efforts to work with principals to secure and equalise young children’s schooling.Conclusion: Giving greater governance power to parents and principals may help to equalise the extremes of inequalities in primary schools remaining from Nationalist Party policies of the pre-1994 apartheid era.Contribution: This study contributes to primary school principals’ ideas for improving primary schoolchildren’s education.

Beyond ‘white monopoly capital’: Understanding race, control, and cohesion in the South African corporate elite

ABSTRACT White monopoly capital’ (WMC) has become one of the most ubiquitous terms in the South African political lexicon, bolstered by a re-energised nationalist movement. Its rise has been the occasion for a welcome debate on the changing dimensions of race, power, and control in the capitalist class. However, that debate has remained polarised between a camp that has been largely dismissive of the very possibility of a racial power bloc and one that sees it as a self-evident reality. By posing the question of whether WMC is a ‘useful’ category of analysis, this article seeks to take a more historical and empirical approach to the issue. It argues that WMC analyses implicitly overstate both the extent of white control and the extent of racial division in the elite. Yet, it argues, race still has important impacts on elite politics both within the corporate sphere and across the wider field of business. It concludes by sketching avenues of research on the politics of race, control, and cohesion in the South African elite.

Experiencing Negative Racial Stereotyping: The Case of Coloured People in Johannesburg, South Africa

Scholars examining racial stereotyping and prejudice in racially organised social systems have largely focused on how non-White ethnic and racial groups experience racial stereotyping in White-majority national contexts such as the US, Australia and European countries. There is only scant scholarship on experiences of ethno-racial communities in Black-majority countries such as South Africa, a country where Whites are a minority. Even though there is ample scholarly work on racial stereotyping of racial groups in South Africa such as Coloured people, much of it is focused on their experiences during colonial and Apartheid eras. Little is understood about how Coloured people experience racial stigmatisation in post-Apartheid South Africa. This paper addresses this gap. Based on interviews with fourteen Coloured participants from Westbury, Johannesburg, this study found that many interviewees claimed that Coloured South Africans were negatively racially stereotyped as people who use drugs, as aggressive and violent people, as alcoholics and as criminals. Many participants also resisted and countered the negative stereotypes by talking about Coloured people in positive ways, which shows their agency. The negative stereotyping of Coloured people which prevailed during colonial and Apartheid times is still deployed by society to describe Coloured people in post-Apartheid South Africa. To capture the continuity of negative stereotyping in South Africa about Coloured people, I developed the analytical term of ‘perpetual racial stereotyping’. Many decades after the end of the Apartheid system, negative racial stereotyping of Coloured South Africans still continues in everyday life, and Coloured people are still associated with racist prejudices, narratives, discourses and stereotypes that were invented many decades ago by settler colonialism and Apartheid.

The role of storytelling as a possible trauma release for war veterans: A narrative approach

The master narrative of Apartheid South Africa created a specific identity for white boys and men and, together with this identity, a very particular role and place within the South African context. This identity was exemplified in the men who were conscripted into the military from 1967 until 1994, and who participated in operations on the border regions of Namibia and Angola as well as within local townships in the war of liberation against apartheid and minority rule. Many veterans have been left grappling not only with the traumas associated with combat but also with the loss of their identities as war heroes in a country under changed political control. As a result, many of their personal stories and experiences of combat have been silenced by society at large and also, to varying degrees, within their own families, the Church, and among the younger generation who have grown up under a different dispensation. The conflict between vacillating narratives of villains who fought on the wrong side of history and victims of a closed socialisation system has supported the identity struggle faced by many veterans today. Against this backstory, this article explores the effects of storytelling as a trauma release using a narrative approach.Contribution: This article offers a contribution to the use of storytelling in pastoral conversations as a trauma release for untold stories. This insight links to the focus and scope of the journal as a pastoral narrative approach has been used under the umbrella of Practical Theology.

BRIDGING THE DIVIDE: ADDRESSING SOCIOECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS (2000-2015)

The practice of the apartheid system in South Africa has been widely condemned for perpetuating enduring socio-economic inequality and for its detrimental impacts on the lives of millions of citizens. While many studies have strongly affirmed this assertion, socio-economic inequality continues to arguably engender a long-lasting struggle among the black and colored communities in post-apartheid South Africa. This places a burden on the country’s successive governments to implement long-term policies that can rectify the plight of the people. Consequently, the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000 becomes an important reference tool for the African National Congress (ANC)-dominated government, which has initiated and implemented policies to combat inequality in the post-apartheid era. This study examines the roles and measures taken by the ANC government to address racially discriminated economic and social inequality within the framework of the MDGs. Using qualitative research methods, the study explores the background framework of the MDGs and analyzes socio-economic measures implemented by successive ANC governments between 2000 and 2015, focusing on areas such as education, poverty eradication, and healthcare. Primary and secondary sources are utilized to provide insights and support the analysis. The findings reveal that the ANC-dominated government effectively incorporated the frameworks of the MDGs into its formulation and execution of policy measures to eradicatesocial inequality in South Africa. The study concludes that the effective implementation of these measures has yielded considerableprogress, effectively addressing multifaceted issues such as poverty, healthcare, education, and unemployment. This conclusion alignswith the official South African MDG report, which unequivocally highlights the several achievements of MDG targets through policyimplementation from 2000 to 2015.

Interventions at the Local Spheres of Government in South Africa: An Assessment of Monitoring and Evaluation

The post-1994 landscape in South Africa presented millions of individuals—especially the majority Black population who had been subjected to many apartheid policies—with renewed hope for better and improved development opportunities. This stemmed from the fact that the first democratically elected administration of the African National Congress (ANC) promised immense socioeconomic change when they assumed office. These promises became evident from the many socioeconomic policies and Chapter 9 institutions that came to the fore over the last two decades, as well as the mapping of new legislation and policies for local government as enshrined in the Constitution of 1996. These actions were viewed to further the envisioned development trajectories of government, especially as the local government is the government closest to the people. However, post-1994, some municipalities in South Africa have endured massive challenges that have needed numerous involvements from the government through various interventions. This has been a continuous phenomenon, irrespective of the many policies at play to oversee the smooth operation of municipalities. This article delves into the failure of some municipalities in South Africa and interventions of local government in post-apartheid South Africa by scrutinising what drives this phenomenon. Furthermore, it dwells on the impact and challenges of effective monitoring and evaluation (M&E) policies at the local government level.

On the trail of banal racism: a Gypsophile genealogy of Romaphobia

ABSTRACT Based on a concern to study historical forms of racism that usually fall under the radar of histories of racism that focus on the peak moments of regimes such as Jim Crow laws in the United States, Nazi racial politics and the apartheid system in South Africa, this article proposes a definition of the concept of banal racism to be applied in situations where the explanation of racism involves long-standing cultural phenomena and social practices rather than legal norms and official policies. A dialogue is established with concepts borrowed from the social sciences, such as “cordial racism,” “prosaic racism” and “benevolent racism,” to underline the banality (in Arendt’s sense) of these forms of discrimination and social hierarchisation, which can entail a high degree of violence compatible with their declared innocence. Together with the conceptual proposal, a case study is presented as an example, in which the racist undercurrent underlying the Gypsyophile discourse of three Anglo-Saxon travellers who visited Spain between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries is analysed.

‘The statue is a painful reminder of the past’: South African staff and students’ perspectives on MT Steyn statue removal

ABSTRACT This study draws on qualitative research to explore students’, academic, and support staff perspectives on the processes of the removal of the MT Steyn statue from the Bloemfontein Campus. The findings demonstrate that the majority of participants thought the Steyn statue brought back memories of the past. They associated it with apartheid. The results of this study indicate that the majority of participants believed the MT Steyn statue reopens old wounds, especially in black people’s memories. They believed that keeping the monument in place would compel them to recall the horrific memories of the apartheid era. Some participants, though, did not feel impacted or see the statue as a reminder of the past. The study’s findings lend more credence to the idea of moving the monument off the Bloemfontein Campus.

National Mythscapes and Popular New Zealand Rugby Histories: Representing the 1986 Cavaliers

This paper explores Duncan Bell’s heuristic of the mythscape as a means to conceptualize the nationalistic narrativization of the sporting past. Bell approaches the forging of national identity through evocations of the past as mythologized: that is, partial, contested, power-laden, and perpetually mutating. First, we introduce Bell’s concept as a means to evaluate the selective, contested and shifting construction of the sporting past through the prism of nationalism. We first chart the narrativisation of the New Zealand – South African rugby rivalry within popular literature during the apartheid era (1948–1994). This was characterized by the production of ‘governing’ myths and oppositional narrations from the 1960s onward. We then evaluate subsequent post-apartheid narrativizations (1994 onwards) within popular rugby histories, focussing on the 1986 Cavaliers rugby tour to South Africa – the final event in apartheid-era rugby ties between the two nations. We explore how writers use particular narratives, and what they have chosen to exclude, and how it informs a national mythscape. We find the rehabilitation of governing myths that sanitize and redact connections between New Zealand rugby and apartheid. This is symptomatic of a selective construction that valorizes rugby as a idealized national institution. Finally, we offer comments on the utility of the mythscapes concept.

White Liberalism and Black Consciousness in Rosie Motene’s Reclaiming the Soil (2018)

White liberal gestures of kindness such as interventions to alleviate poverty in black communities are often seen as altruistic initiatives with noble intentions. However, in recent years, these interventions have come under greater scrutiny as scholars question the “white savior mentality” that often frames and propels such initiatives. In fact, contemporary neo-liberal interventions bear resemblance with the colonial civilizing mission because of their preoccupation with fixing problems in “broken” black communities. This article draws on Steve Biko’s notion of black consciousness and some concepts from black feminist thought to explore how Rosie Motene’s autobiography, Reclaiming the Soil: A Black Girl’s Struggle to Find her African Self (henceforth Reclaiming the Soil) interrupts the hegemonic liberal narrative of white saviorism to insert an alternative narrative of black struggle for self-determination. The study has three objectives. Firstly, it investigates how the autobiography narrates Motene’s lived experiences as a black girl adopted by and growing up within a white family. Secondly, it explores how the autobiography narrates liberal white saviorism in the context of apartheid racism and discrimination. Thirdly, it examines how the contradictions of the apartheid system and the white savior narrative awaken feelings of resentment and ultimately black consciousness in the narrator. The study argues that Motene’s autobiography is a “black consciousness” text that highlights the inherent contradictions of being white and liberal in a society that systemically entrenches poverty and suffering for black people to serve white interests.

‘Connected or committed critic?’ Teologies nagedink oor die vraagstuk van ‘Binnestander’- of ‘Buitestander’-kritikus in Suid-Afrika

‘Connected or committed critic?’ Theologically pondered on the issue of ‘Insider’- or ‘Outsider’ critic in South Africa: During the beginning of 2023, a conference was organised by a study group to be held in Stellenbosch later that year with the focus on the ideology of apartheid in South Africa, with special reference to prof. B.B. Keet, one of the first theologians to oppose this ideology. The author of this article was invited to attend the conference and present a paper. Unfortunately the conference did not take place, for various reasons, and subsequently the author decided to finalise his paper and present it as an article for publication. The author decided to look into the matter from two opposing views which were called ‘connected critic’ (criticism of the insider) on the one hand, and ‘committed critic’ (criticism of the outsider) on the other hand. Which road should be followed by prophetic theologians in their church, when they become convinced that their church is contradicting the Word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ? Should they stay inside the church (connected critic) and contribute their criticism from there, or should they leave the church while raising their voice from outside the church (committed critic)?Contribution: The article starts with an introduction that investigates the views of Keet. Then three other voices are analysed, namely those of prof. W.D. Jonker of Stellenbosch (connected critic), Beyers Naudé of Johannesburg (committed critic) and at last the voice of the author himself (connected critic). In the end, the author explains why he had chosen for the option to be a connected critic. In a final conclusion, a few remarks are made as far as the future of South Africa is concerned.